


A Dark Path

by angstyastronaut



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Blood, Gen, Gore, Po3, Rewrite, heavily implied body horror, kind of horror i guess, tigerstars name has been changed to tigershade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-26 04:54:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20736542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angstyastronaut/pseuds/angstyastronaut
Summary: Lionblaze is ready to receive his Dark Forest name.





	A Dark Path

Tigershade watched him with lidded eyes, tail swishing lazily. Blood trickled from his torn open face. “You’ve learned well,” he mewed. “It’s time for you to earn your Dark Forest name.”  


Lionblaze’s heart swelled with pride, his own wounds forgotten. “What do I do?” he asked.  


“Come with me. And don’t make a sound; I need to concentrate on where we’re going,” said Tigershade. The Dark Forest warrior turned and began to bound through the forest at a breakneck pace, taking a mind wrecking set of twists and turns with no hesitation, even though the forest had no real trails. Lionblaze struggled to keep up, much to his embarrassment. The trees became more and more tangled, the glow of the mushrooms becoming duller until the brightest light were the blue spores being shaken out of Tigershade’s fur as he ran were the only thing resembling light. The scent of must became so thick in the air that it was almost unbearable, and unseen thorns scraped at his pelt. They slowed down to a walk, the ground clinging to their every footstep, even though his paws stayed dry. Lionblaze panted heavily in the silence, but Tigershade showed no signs of tiredness as he pressed on.  


“We’re here. Lionblaze, step forward for your task.” Lionblaze heard Tigershade stop in front of him; a dim grey light suffused this place. Where _were_ they? It didn’t feel like the Dark Forest anymore; no tangled trees twisted around them, and instead of being cool the temperature was utterly neutral. The still air brought no sounds of fighting cats, and the ground had no ruts to catch a running cat. Lionblaze looked up. The sky, no longer hidden by the trees, stretched big and black over their heads. An enormous, dim grey star hung low over the horizon. Wordless whispers, dark and filled with malice brushed against his ears. He noticed that something was writhing within the star. A thousand somethings. Bile splashed against his throat.  


“There’s _cats _up there,” said Lionblaze, looking away. Screams echoed in his ears, soft as lamb’s-ear.  


“In body only, if they even still have bodies. Don’t mind them,” Tigershade led them further into the void. Lionblaze kept his eyes fixed on the ground, vile noise piercing his ears. He knew that those bodies would haunt his dreams for nights to come.  


He didn’t notice Tigershade stop, and nearly fell into their destination. A little bubbling pool of grey liquid sat in a deep rut, a few sharp thorns as long as his leg trailing into it. “What is this?” he breathed.

“This is the border between the Dark Forest and eternity, where the last battle between good and evil stripped the land bare and condemned those who walked the woods before us to look over their failure forever. Here lies the only thing sacred to us. It has gone by many names; the Mire, the Pool of no Stars, the Darkwater, to name a few. In this age it is called the Thornpool. Like the Moonpool, it exists both in the land of the dead and the living. But we can no longer find it in the waking world. All that we know is that it is somewhere around this lake. Lionblaze, pierce your paw with one of the thorns. When you awake, you must find it again and reforge the connection between the Dark Forest and living cats. I promise if you do this, you will receive much more than your Dark Forest name,” Tigershade smirked.

“Dark Forest cats have tried to conquer the Clans before?” he glanced up at the 'star'. _Help, help, help,_ the grey cats whispered.

Tigershade shrugged his shoulders. “That was long time ago, before the Clans. Maggottail is the only one left. He managed to escape into the trees somehow.” He looked disinterested in the tale.

Doubt snaked into Lionblaze’s heart. He looked up once more at the tortured cats. He remembered Maggottail, whose fur had been bleached by countless ages and was as insubstantial as mist. Their face was always twisted into pure terror, his pelt always bristling. _Did he want to end up like them?_ “Uh, Tigershade… what happens if we lose?”

“We will not lose. The Ancients lost their way, their focus. We know better. And we have _you_,” Tigershade nipped him playfully, eyes gentle.  
Lionblaze purred weakly, his paws feeling steadier. His fears were foolish. He held the power of the stars in his paws, after all. Starclan could not inflict the suffering above upon him.

Heart in his mouth, Lionblaze padded towards the Thornpool. He had the strangest feeling that the liquid was alive and waiting with bated breath; a strange bubbling voice that he couldn’t understand rattled in his ears, blotting out the grey cats in the sky. A heavy atmosphere of anticipation hung over him as he wondered which thorn to choose. Most of the thorns lay dangerously close to the Thornpool; he had a feeling that he shouldn’t touch the fluid within it. He noticed one thorn pointing up into the air, quite close to the edge of the hollow. A thin breeze pushed over the plane, pushing a thorn out. Flakes of old blood clung to it. Bracing himself, Lionblaze stretched out his left foreleg as far out as it could go and touched it.

“Ow!” The pain lanced deep into his pads, blood spattering everywhere. Lionblaze ripped his paw away; the thorn had pierced deep without any pressure. The Thornpool steamed where his blood splattered in the murk. Deep darkness encroached on his vision as his body became numb.  


“Good luck. Remember, you hold the power of the stars in your paws. Trust your training and you can’t go wrong,” Tigershade’s voice was now a far away whisper, trailing off into absolute silence as his spirit faded from the frontier. Lionblaze spent an agonising second between worlds, panic creeping in with every moment he spent without a body. Then he woke up in his little nest at the edge of the warrior’s den, every cat around him fast asleep. He looked at his pierced paw. A small, dark spot marked where the thorn had impaled it. Dull throbbing pounded through the entire foot, which he favoured as he slowly stood up. Careful to not wake the slumbering warriors around him, Lionblaze padded out of the den and into the thick darkness before dawn, a strange tugging in his chest leading him to his destiny.

**Author's Note:**

> So uh this is a little thing I wrote for a Po3 rewrite AU thing that I'm probably never going to write in its entirety. I might write some more oneshots in the same universe tho. I know that I posted this without any context whatsoever so probably weird and confusing, but I've wanted to post something something here for awhile and everything I write is weird and confusing so


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